


Unconquerable

by Osidiano



Series: Down With This Ship [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: (but only in Ch 9), (only in Ch 12 & 15), F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Love Confessions, Mentioned Kujaku Mai/Jounouchi Katsuya | Mai Valentine/Joey Wheeler, Mid-Canon, Post-Series, Requited Love, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2008-08-26
Updated: 2010-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-13 06:03:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 8,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4510590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Osidiano/pseuds/Osidiano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-five unconnected ficlets to twenty-five love quotes. Some people just don't want to fall in love and some people can't, but sometimes it just takes awhile to win them over to your side. Conquestshipping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Forever

**15.** Some things are worth waiting for. . . Even if you have to wait forever. 

He tried to reach out to her for the hundredth time since they had met, tried to catch her in his strong arms and pull her close so that she did not have to be afraid anymore. More than anything, he wanted to remind her that he could take care of her. He was strong enough to push away the demons and fight off all the nightmares, if only she would let him. But Mai was not the kind of woman who allowed her weakness to be shown and exploited, could not seem to stand the thought of someone holding her. She turned and slipped through his gloved fingers, long blonde hair and scathing remarks trailing behind her as she fled.

It seemed like she was always running away from him.

Valon sighed, hands falling, one finding its way to the back of his neck to rub at the muscle thoughtfully. The other came to rest on his hip, the gesture not quite frustrated. Perhaps tomorrow. . . yes, tomorrow would be better, for sure. She was probably just in a bad mood, and these were busy times for them. Dartz would be sending them out to collect more souls, and she might have been worried about where they would end up and if she was strong enough to do it. Yes, that must have been it. By tomorrow, he assured himself silently, things would be better, and he would try again.

He had thought that yesterday, too, and the day before. Quickly, Valon shook the reminder from his head. What did one more day matter, anyway? Some things in life were just worth waiting for, and for her, he could wait forever.


	2. Hold

**17.** All I want is for someone to hold me and tell me that everything is going to be okay.

Mai woke up screaming every night, and always it was the same name on her lips, but never his. He was there, sleeping on the floor so that he could jump up to protect her from the nightmares, the unspeakable horrors that had stripped her of her self-confidence and independence. Every night, Valon wrapped his arms around her, and whispered to her that it was going to be okay because it was just a dream and he was here now, and he would _never_ let _anything_ hurt her ever again. It was implied that the other man, the stranger with the foreign name that she sometimes called him in her panic, was not needed anymore; he silently begged her to forget about the other man. Valon held her every night until the nightmare and the tears passed, calmed her fears and wiped the cold sweat from her brow. He stayed awake long after she drifted back into unconsciousness, rocking her gently.

If all she wanted from the other man, that foreigner bastard who left her all alone like this, was a pair of strong arms and some comforting words, Valon was sure that he would have been more than enough to replace him.


	3. Almost

**19.** Sometimes, you need to run away to see who will follow. 

Sometimes she just felt like running. Not to anywhere in particular, because a part of her knew that it really did not matter where she ended up. Every new place she went to was just as cold and empty as the last, and never had what she was looking for. But she reasoned that that was normal: sometimes, people just needed to run away to some place exotic in search of things that they thought would complete them. That was perfectly normal, just like her. Sometimes she just needed to get away from all the familiar sights and sounds, needed to see if she was ready to outrun the shadows and her own loneliness. Then again, maybe that was not what she was doing at all.

Perhaps it was all just part of an experiment to see if she would be missed. Maybe it did not matter who followed, only that someone did. It was nice to feel like she was wanted. Like she was _needed_ , win or lose. When she thought about it like that, she almost did not care that he was not the man she had fallen in love with. It almost did not matter that he was not the man she cried out for in the dark when the nightmares got too scary.

 _Almost_ , but not quite.

Valon had followed her across two continents and eight different countries; he spoke no foreign languages, and each new city had him reeling with the strangeness of new customs that he had been forcibly introduced to, but he had sworn that she was worth it. Mai refused to talk to him after that, turned him away when he finally managed to catch up. He was sleeping on streets and living out of a backpack, had long since sold off his beloved motorcycle for extra cash so he could afford to eat. Mai kept running and changing addressing, kept entering new tournaments and winning trophies that left her feeling empty inside.

Because, in the end, it _did_ still matter, regardless of how she tried to think of it.


	4. Sleep

**5.** Find someone who will stay awake just to watch you sleep.

She could only ever sleep when he was in the room, slouched low in the armchair he had dragged from the living room to her bedside but still wide awake, even as the night dragged on. It did not matter if he had to go in the next morning, or if he had just gotten off a double-shift at the local construction site where he picked up odd jobs every now and again: Valon always stayed up the whole night, so that when Mai would jerk awake fitfully just before sunset, he could put his hands on her shoulders and lean in close to tell her that everything was going to be all right.

He was here now, and he would always stay awake to keep her safe.

His whispered reassurances quelled the rising panic and silenced the screams that threatened to bubble up from deep inside. He would smile softly and caress her cheek with the back of one hand, the other brushing her hair back from her sweat-soaked brow. Then Valon would lay down next to her on the bed — always on top of the sheets, because she kept telling him that she would never like him like that — and put an arm around her. Mai clung to him, her fists gripping the front of his shirt like a life-line, the side of her face pressed against his strong chest as she took in shaky, gasping breaths. And then she would drift off to sleep again, only to wake up a few hours later to shove him onto the floor indignantly.


	5. Misunderstand

**49.** It's not what I feel for you. It's what I don't feel for anyone but you.

"You're pathetic," she sneered, pulling back when he reached for her hand. "You're always so. . . so _needy_. You cling to everyone around you —"

 _No_ , he thought, but kept his mouth clamped firmly shut, dropping his eyes to focus on a spot on the carpet between his feet. _Just you_.

"— and then you throw around that bullshit about being in love with me. Your feelings get in the way of everything. You're too unprofessional, too weak."

"I do love you, and if being strong means that I always have to be alone, then I'd rather be weak. Wouldn't you, Mai?"

She slapped him hard across the face, his head turning with the blow. He told himself that she did it so he would not see that painful look in her eyes, or the way the tears welled up and threatened to fall and ruin her cold mask. But that knowledge did little to lessen the stinging in his cheek. She made a small hitching sound in the back of her throat before turning sharply on her heels and stalking out of the room. Mai paused in the doorway momentarily, her voice sounding strained and unsteady as she spoke over her shoulder:

"I don't love you. I'll never love you. I wouldn't want to fall in love with someone who couldn't make me feel strong, or someone who wants me to stay this pathetic forever just so he won't feel lonely."

He wanted to tell her that that was not what he meant at all, but she walked away before he could get the words out.


	6. Love vs Need

**11.**  I don't love you because I need you; I need you because I love you. 

"You only say that you love me because you need my strength."

"I'm not Dartz, Mai," Valon reassured her, adjusting one of the straps on his forearm without so much as glancing up in her general direction. She was leaning heavily against the door frame leading into his room, arms cross over her chest. He moved from the edge of the bed to the floor on hands and knees, searching for the goggles he had misplaced earlier. "When I tell you I love you, I mean it."

"But you don't deny needing me?" the tone she used was sharp, biting and angry. She had known that he was just using her since he found her crying in that ally so many nights ago, since he had taken her by the hand and promised to help her regain her self-confidence and independence. Yet he refused to admit to it whenever she attempted to pry a confession from him. He finally looked up, a small smile softening his features as he caught her gaze.

"That's not why I love you."


	7. Name

**2.**  Kisses are like tears. The only ones that are real are the ones you can't hold back. 

She pressed her lips against him desperately, throwing her arms around his neck. He only just barely caught her in time, taking a step back to catch himself and keep them from falling to the floor. It was surprising, to say the least; after waiting for so long, he had almost given up all hope. Valon pulled her closer, one hand sliding down from her shoulder to rest on the curve of her hip and the other finding its way into her hair, fingers catching in the blonde wave at the back of her head. He closed his eyes and prayed that he was not dreaming when he deepened the kiss.

It was not a perfect kiss, though. It was a hungry, savage way of kissing that would leave his lips feeling bruised and delicate afterward. She was breathing hard and gasped when he accidentally bit her tongue; he flinched when they knocked their teeth together in the middle of it. Mai fumbled with his shirt, pushing him back just long enough to pull it over his head before he leaned forward, mouth on her neck. She arched up against him, and whispered his name —

Except that it was  _not_  his name, but another, one that he had heard many times before. He stopped, the moment lost as he realized that she kissed the same way she cried, and that she just using him again.


	8. Goodbye

**20.**  Goodbyes make you realize what you've gained, what you've felt, and what you've taken for granted.

"I can't do this anymore, Mai."

His voice came from the kitchen doorway, his shoulder leaning against the frame as he watched her drink her morning coffee. She looked over to him expectantly, trying to blink the hazy half-sleep from her eyes. Valon sighed, averting his gaze and rubbing at the back of his neck awkwardly. A strangely tense silence hung in the air between them for a moment before she finally asked what he meant.

"I mean, I can't keep doing this," he said it again, but elaborated when she raised a brow questioningly. "I can't keep waking up next to you knowing that you wish it was someone else. I can't keep hearing you call me by his name every time I hold you."

"So you're leaving?" Mai said it effortlessly and was proud of herself for keeping her voice so steady, and for keeping the worry and fear off her face. She drank her coffee slowly and waited.

". . . Yeah. Yeah, I'm leaving, but I still love you, and if you ever. . ." he faltered, his words trailing off into nothing as she glanced down at the table. She could hear him shifting, straightening; he had probably swallowed hard and put his shoulders back, head high with eyes narrowed in that show of adolescent bravado, like a little boy playing at being tough. He had a tendency to do that when he was hurt but wanted to pretend that he was okay. "No, I'm not gonna wait for you to come around. If you ever need me as a friend, I'll be there for you, but I can't and I won't stand in for Jounouchi anymore."

In the past it had always been Mai who walked out the door without looking back. She had not thought that she would ever be on the receiving end of that brutal treatment, and now that she was the one left alone in the room she could not help but wonder if this was the way Valon felt every time: hopeless and empty, like everything was falling apart all over again. It reminded her of Battle City. She laid her head down on her arms, crossed upon the table, and cried.


	9. Seventeen

**23.**  We're so weird. That's what I like about us, actually.

It had been his first time, and while not magical or perfect, Valon thought that it had been wonderful. Amazing, even. In fact, he thought that they should do it again immediately, and continue as often as possible. He would get better with practice, right? Oh, that was a good idea; as soon as he got his breath back, he would tell Mai that he really thought he just needed some additional  _practice_. She should have no problem teaching him, right? That is, assuming that it had been as mind-blowing for her as it had been for him.

 _But what if_. . .? Valon felt a familiar tug of worry and slight edge of panic on that thought. What if she had not thought it was good? What if she thought that he was an inexperienced kid — which he was — who got off too soon — which he had — and was completely unworthy of her time and affection? The butterflies in his stomach changed then from the comfortable fluttering of a post-adrenaline rush to the uneasy quiver of doubt.

Of course, Valon did not think that he deserved much, because he was — once upon a time — very Catholic, and he had done a lot of very bad things growing up. There were a lot of things that he had not even told Mai about, like how he had joined up with Dartz and the D.O.O.M. organization or how he had gotten sentenced to prison in the first place. She knew that he was orphan, that he had grown up in a Catholic orphanage in Jersey City, and that he had spent some time in jail. He had not told her about beating two men to death in an alleyway with a broken piece of pipe, or about any of the men he had killed while under Dartz's orders.

Mai laid an arm over his naked stomach, resting her cheek on his right pectoral. Instinctively, he wrapped his own arm around her shoulder and held her close. A drowsy smile appeared on her face, and she opened her eyes ever so slightly to look up at him. He decided then that he had to tell her the truth about his past and the things that he had done.

"Y'know, Mai, when I was fourteen —"

"That was a long time ago, Valon," she interrupted with a sleepy mumble. Valon opened his mouth to say something, closing it abruptly on second thought. What was he supposed to say to that? There was a lengthy pause as he chose his words carefully before finally speaking:

"Three years isn't a long time."

The fatigue seemed to melt away from Mai as she jerked up into a sitting position on the bed. Her were open and narrowed into a dark glare as she stared at him, a frown tugging at the corners of her pretty mouth. She had grabbed the edge of the sheet as she moved, fumbling with a tangle for a moment before clutching it over her chest. Her voice was dead-pan serious when she asked her question, acting like it was somehow a life or death situation.

"You're  _how old_?"

She was in bed with a murderer who did not read the Bible anymore and had not been to a confessional in a year and a half, and all she could worry about was whether or not she was a cougar. Valon just laughed.


	10. Jealous

**4.**  A little jealousy in a relationship is healthy. It's nice to know that someone is afraid to lose you.

Valon did not know what had set her off, only that she had been fine moments ago but was angry now. She had her arms crossed over chest, her painted lips pursed and brows narrowed. Her head was turned away from him, her gaze focused on something outside the kitchen window or maybe on nothing at all. He sighed, and tried to ready himself as he sat down at the table.

". . . What's her name?"

"Don't say it like that, Mai," he sighed in exasperation, running a hand through his unruly hair. It was then that he knew what had caused the misunderstanding: and here he thought that he had remembered to delete the old messages from the answering machine. "She's a coworker on the site, that's  _all_."

"Sure she is."

"I wouldn't choose her over you, anyway."

"As if I care!" she exclaimed indignantly, turning on her heel to storm out of the room. A moment later, and he heard the bedroom door slam shut. Valon stayed seated, a small smile playing on his lips. It made him feel good to know that she might have been worried.


	11. Wonderful

**8.**  I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.

"I don't know how you do it," she told him, raising her hands in a gesture of frustrated helplessness. Valon looked up from the newspaper, one brow quirked up. She chewed her lower lip lightly, rubbing one arm self-consciously. "After all that you've been through, how can you be satisfied with this?"

"With what, Mai?"

"With. . . with just  _being here_ ," she tried to elaborate, casting her gaze about the room for something that would help her to better explain. "I mean. . . we stole people's souls. We almost brought about the end of the world. We electrocuted people, lit them on fire, and beat them to death with chains and pipes."

"Yeah. . ."

"We were on the top of the world once, Valon."

"I'm not sure what you're getting at, but okay," Valon set his paper aside, leaning forward in his seat to rest his elbows on spread knees.

"And now we're just scraping by? Just struggling to get from one day to the next, to pay rent and eat? Doesn't that ever. . . Don't you ever wish that there was more? That. . ." she trailed off as she watched him smile up at her, blue eyes narrowed into bright slits.

"Why? The only thing I need to make my life special is you."

He said it so easily. Mai opened her mouth to respond, only to realize that there was nothing left to say after that kind of a confession.


	12. Withdrawal

**25.**  To fear love is to fear life.

She watched him cautiously, carefully, like a caged animal. Her back was against the wall, her shoulder pressed up into the corner. He could not tell if those were tears or just the water from the shower head on her cheeks, but her eyes looked red and puffy, her face flushed. It did not look like just the work of the heat. He reached a gloved hand out to her, his other still holding onto the frosted glass door.

"Hey. . ." he exhaled the word slowly, waiting to see if she would jerk or twitch into his grasp willingly. She hunkered down, as if she could make herself smaller and less noticeable. Her body was trembling, though Valon could not tell if it was a result of fear or simply the side effects of withdrawal. He wished Dartz would just give her more, but knew that it was pointless to ask until she had fully entered the Order. "Come here, Mai. . ."

She bit him when he pulled her up and wrapped his arms around her naked back, bit and screamed and thrashed against him. But he held on until she calmed down; until she clawed at his hair frantically, sobbing  _please no don't I'm scared don't touch don't hurt —_

He carried her back to bed.


	13. Dream

**21.**  I never knew I had a dream until that dream was you.

Valon had had few aspirations as a child. He had hoped that the roof would stop leaking every time it rained, had wished that the Sister-nuns had prepared enough food for him to be able to grab seconds, and occasionally harbored the distant desire to be adopted by a good family. People talked about long-standing goals and dreams, things that they prayed for everyday and worked towards with relentless passion. Valon did not have those growing up because he knew that they did not come true. Dreams left people sad and disappointed. One of the other boys at the orphanage wanted to find his real parents. He found out that they were dead. An older boy that Valon was friends with told him that he dreamed of owning a big house and three cars, of starting a rock band and becoming famous. He ended up in jail two years later after a failed carjacking.

After the orphanage burned down, Valon did not have any time or room for childish hopes and dreams. He wanted revenge, and when the moment came, it surprised him. The touch of cool metal and the way it fit into his grip felt bizarrely natural, the ease that he swung his impromptu weapon made him wonder if the Sisters were right about some people being destined for things. If so, maybe he was supposed to be a fighter. A killer.  _A murderer_. Blood had flecked his face and hands as he landed blow after blow, their skulls going soft as bone shattered and fell inward on the brain. Valon had been shaking, but he had not been afraid. Even in the aftermath, being led to the back of a police car and sitting in stuffy courtrooms, he had not felt ashamed.

Valon imagined that he would make a great boxer while holed up in solitary confinement after breaking another inmate's arm. He fantasized about roaring crowds and pumping adrenaline through his veins, of feeling bones and cartilage give way beneath his fists. Thoughts of strength and freedom consumed him, and when that strange pale person came and whispered hope and promises of battle, Valon had ignored his own misgivings and agreed readily. He sold his soul to the long-haired devil, to mismatched eyes and a genderless voice without a second's hesitation.

Maybe that was what Dartz had seen in him; that boiling anger and bright streak of righteousness, those little boy dreams behind jaded glares. Valon knew that it was not because he was deeply religious, not because he really believed in fate or destiny or any of that crap that they were all so fond of. Perhaps Dartz had sprung him from jail simply because he needed a violent dog, and the other two would eventually find faults with what they were doing. Amelda would one day kill the last of the Kaiba family and run their company to the ground; he would want nothing more to do with Dartz's holy crusade after avenging his brother's wrongful death. Raphael would succumb to his own self-loathing and despair, and even Dartz's personal blend of smoke and false courage — of hallucinogens and warped faith — would not be enough to force him to turn back. Only Valon, who had nothing and no one left to blame for it, held onto the desire to fight.

But those were not dreams, he often told himself. Valon did not have dreams, only vague ambitions and loose desires. Still, the idealistic vision he had conceived behind bars began to fade the longer he lived it. While not a boxer per se, he insisted on killing with his hands while the others used more conventional weapons. He rode longer, fought harder, but it did nothing to quiet the anxious feeling that they were wrong; that he was pouring his being into a hopeless cause that he did not believe in because he had never really believed in anything. It was disappointing, frustrating. It sapped him of his strength and smile.

That was when he met  _her_.

Once upon a time, she had been strong and certain; once, she had been on top of the world. She wanted to become a fighter who could not lose, a warrior with unwavering strength in the face of any terror. But that was a long time ago, and now she was afraid of everything. She trembled at the chance of failure, cried out against the darkness and refused to sleep, but made him smile nonetheless. She was broken in so many ways, but he could still see fire behind her eyes, could feel her pride flare up when she glared at him and pushed away his helping hands.

He wanted her to be strong all on her own again, but until then he wished he could be her strength. Valon prayed for the chance to reach out to her and pull her back to her feet. He craved the ability to fight off her nightmares and bring her the heads of all her demons. When Dartz put her through the Knight's initiation, he had held her close to his chest until the screaming stopped, until the drug worked its way through her system and the seizures quieted into tiny muscle tremors. Valon tried to wish her pain away. It was not long before he was dreaming of her recovery.

Dreams were pointless. Valon knew that better than most. If he bled into one hand and dreamt into the other, he knew which would fill faster. Her arrival in his life did not suddenly make him believe that dreams did anything more than make people vulnerable. But his focus shifted anyway, his priorities rearranged themselves without his asking. He threw himself into his struggle for her, and dreamt of being a savior.


	14. Beautiful

**28.**  No three words have a greater power than "I love you".

"What?" her head jerked up at his words, purple eyes narrowed into a squint behind messy blonde bangs. She had not brushed her hair yet this morning, and her makeup felt heavy and streaky on her face. Mai quickly rubbed the pads of each index finger under her eyes in an attempt to remove the dark smudges she knew would be there from yesterday's mascara. She should have washed it off before going to bed last night; she remembered reading somewhere that sleeping with foundation on made your skin look older by at least one year per night. It was too damn early for him to say things like that, so she must have misheard him. She certainly was not looking or feeling her best this morning. "What did you just say?"

"You're beautiful. Really beautiful," he repeated it as a thoughtful murmur. His lips were pressed together tightly to hold in a laugh that escaped at the end of the word as a soft chuckle, his smile big and honest. He often told her that she was pretty, that she was exquisite or amazing, or something along those lines. But it was early morning, and she had not had coffee or time to clean herself up. Her pajama top was baggy and unflattering; there was even a stain near the stretched out collar, and the hemming was coming undone at the bottom. She was not even wearing a bra, and crossed her arms over her chest self-consciously. Mai did not feel beautiful. She felt old, and tired, and knew it showed. "I love you."

"Oh, shut up. You do not," she glared at him, shaking her head and turning to head towards the bathroom. Still, she knew that Valon had tilted his head with that grin growing wider to watch her walk away, his eyes trailing down from her tangled hair to the backs of her bared legs. She smiled a little to herself. It was nice to hear that she was still beautiful and that she would always be loved. ". . . _Idiot_."

She felt better about the morning already.


	15. Gone

**33.**  Right now, I can't remember yesterday, and I don't care about tomorrow. This moment is all that matters.

Dartz was dead.

This was not especially important, because Mai really did not care about Dartz. The fact that he was dead was secondary to the consequences of his death. She shivered, scratching at the tract marks along the inside of her arm absently before tapping the big vein in the crook of her elbow. Dartz was dead, and that meant that she had lost her liquid courage. Mai did not know what was in the hypodermic needles he used to press into her hands before a big mission; she just remembered that it was dark and foul looking, and that Dartz said it worked best if she injected it into the big artery in her thigh instead of her arm. She knew it made her feel strong, and powerful, and like she was invincible. It banished the shadows and covered her vision with a red haze. A beautiful green glow would light up the darkness, and the demons from her past could not touch her when it coursed through her veins.

But Dartz was gone now, and so was the drug he administered to his Order.

She tried new things, hunting for that perfect high, that unbroken feeling she had grown addicted to. Withdrawal was too hard on her body, and she could not handle the night sweats and terror that came with it, the screaming that left her throat raw or the seizures that threatened to snap her spine in half. Valon had panicked when he realized how bad it would get. They took up different drugs — vandal, morphine, heroin, and a variety of serotonin stimulators — but it was not the same. They smoked cigarettes instead of eating, and lost weight. Valon held her close, and whispered apologies until she fell into a fitful doze. She was hallucinating monsters and strange sounds, even when she did not take anything.

Mai pulled the belt tighter around her upper arm, biting deep into the old and familiar leather.

Valon tried harder to find out what it was they had been taking from Dartz, but even Amelda did not know, and he had been in the Order the longest. They speculated about its origins: they knew Dartz had come from deep within the Swiss Alps, his monastic order pushed back into mountain crevices that no one wanted to explore. He had spoken Rumantsch fluently, and said that it was his first language even though all of D.O.O.M.'s rituals were held in German. Then again, Dartz had been insane. He had claimed to be the Holy Avatar of the Lord: he dyed his hair that unnatural blue-green and stained his vision gold in one eye with plant extracts and God only knew what else. He tried to make himself as androgynous as physically possible without castration. Dartz swore he had no gender because he was the Voice of the Old Testament God. He lied about a lot of things, come to think of it.

Mai placed the needle tip against her skin, adding pressure little by little until it slid in. She inhaled sharply as she thumbed the plunger. The fluid was injected slowly, but she imagined she could feel its effects immediately. Her thoughts dimmed and the world grew quiet. She lost feeling in her fingertips first, a wave of comforting apathy spreading through her muscles. Suddenly, it no longer mattered that it was not the drug she truly craved. She did not care that Dartz was gone or that he had taken the cure to her nightmares with him. It did not bother her that Valon was passed out on the floor next to her, his breath shallow and unstable with blue eyes rolled up into the back of his head and jaw slack against the dirty carpet. For a moment, she felt nothing: no fear, no hatred or self-pity. And that nothing was followed by a blissfully euphoric feeling as she realized that none of it mattered anymore.


	16. Tears

**44.**  Tears are words the heart cannot say.

She never talked about what happened in Battle City. Valon tried hard not to pry — he did not ask many questions about the life she had before meeting him — but he often wondered what could have scared her so badly that she needed to leave a light on at night. If she did not wake up crying and shaking it might have seemed childish. If Mai did not wake up screaming with wide, unseeing eyes, he might have even just shrugged the whole thing off as nightmares. But they were more than just haunting memories and bad dreams. They had to be.

He pressed her for information on who Jounouchi was once, and was answered with a dirty look. When he questioned her fear of the dark he was met by silence. Finally, he asked her if she had any family left and she told him to get the hell out. It took two days of apologies and one really rough night before she started returning his phone calls.

"There are some things that I just can't say, Valon. Either you can deal with that, or you need to leave."

His fingers tightened around the small cell phone in his left hand, an apprehensive tension snaking out from his stomach. He knew that she was not talking about moving out, but rather was saying that it might be time for him to  _move on_. Valon inhaled deeply through his nose and tried to keep his voice steady:

"Do you want me to leave?"

Mai was quiet for a long time on the other end of the line. If it had not been for the soft static flow of her breath over the receiver, he would have assumed that she had hung up on him. It would not have been the first time. Valon opened his mouth to say her name — to confirm her presence, really — but was cut off by the tiny, strangled sob that escaped her. For a moment, Valon could not move, could not think or react. He just listened to her crying, the painful sound slightly muffled, as though she had slapped her hand over her mouth to stifle it. The thought of her like that brought him back to the present.

She did not need to answer his question, because he knew exactly what she was trying to say.

"I'll be right there."


	17. Action

**26.**  Kiss: A lovely trick designed by nature for when words become unnecessary.

It took two years for Mai to learn how to live again, but once she started down the path of recovery she was quick to banish the shadowy nightmares of her past. She laughed often and smiled more; she basked in every moment of sunlight. There was no amount of petty reality that could tarnish her good mood.

When the economic recession hit Domino, Valon got laid off. Mai just shrugged and picked up a second job as a dealer at the casino downtown, even though she swore she would never step foot in one of those places again. She did not complain. When they had to choose between heating their one bedroom apartment or having running water that winter, she kissed his cheek and told him that she would join him if his showers ever got too cold. Valon had never blushed more deeply in his life.

"How do you do it?" he finally asked, blurting out the question after an unconcerned response to the news that the bank had finally repossessed his motorcycle. Before, it had always been Valon who looked on the bright side; he had always found the silver lining to every dark cloud that passed by. But when the irrationally mundane threatened their unstable lives, he found himself at a loss for words. Who ever thought that the simple life could be so confusing, so complicated and out of hand? "Don't you ever worry that we're not going to make it?"

"Valon, don't be ridiculous," she playfully scolded him as she wrapped her arms around his strong shoulders. Mai rested her cheek against his collarbone, her long blonde hair tickling his neck and nose when he twisted to kiss her forehead out of habit. "We survived the apocalypse. Twice, actually. I think we'll be okay."

It was nice to hear his old optimism echoed back after all this time. Still, it was difficult to ignore the nagging voice in the back of his head, reminding him that downplaying their financial woes would lead to missed rent and an eviction notice, and then where would they be? Valon frowned, eyes narrowing in a thoughtful glare.

"Yeah, but, Mai —"

She interrupted by pressing her mouth to his, the argument lost in the kiss. Later, Valon would complain that she had cheated, but he let it go for the moment to enjoy the taste of her soft lips and the feeling of her hands on his back as she led him out of the kitchen and towards the bedroom. Her actions always seemed to win over his words these days.


	18. In Good Time

**34.**  When you love someone, it's something. When someone loves you, it's another thing. When you love the person who loves you back, it's everything.

"I love you," he always said it with that helpless kind of desperation, always made the confession sound like the only truth he had ever known. Mai looked away from his pleading blue eyes and quivering lips. She knew that he would not cry in front of her; he was too strong for that, too much of a man. He would wait until she had gone before he would allow a single tear to fall. Until then, though, his lips would tremble and his hands would be unsteady when he finally unclasped them. Mai knew all of this, because this was not the first time they had been through this. It was probably not the last time, either. "Please, Mai. . . Say  _something_."

"I'm in love with someone else," she said it simply, no more or less bluntly than she had said it yesterday or the day before. He sighed, a hopeless and tired sign of defeat. She stood from her seat at the table, and moved toward the kitchen counter, calling over one shoulder: "What do you want for dinner tonight, Valon?"

* * *

"I love you."

It was always the same, those last, breathless words that escaped clumsy young lips before he kissed her gently. She did not repeat them, did not murmur back some equally sweet but ultimately empty sentiment, because she knew that it did not matter. He would pull himself off of her and fall into place beside her. Then he would drift off to sleep with his back to her and the messy sheets crumpled around his waist. And Mai would lay awake for another hour, staring up at the same spot on the ceiling above his bed the way that she always did.

She tucked one arm behind her neck to help prop up her head as she lay there, eyes fixed on that cracked and pitted spot she knew so well now. It never took Jounouchi very long to fall asleep, and soon she heard the quiet, tell-tale sign of his gentle snoring beside her. She smiled a little, but it did not quite reach her eyes.

Wasn't this what she wanted? What she had been aiming for?

No, that wasn't quite true. She had wanted to catch up to him, to be on the same level as him and to fight by his side. She had wanted to feel young and beautiful and  _special_  again, the way that they all seemed to be when they worked together. But the battles had long been over, and they had all grown up too hard and too fast in those brutal and ugly games. They had saved the world and been through Hell, but none of them had ever really had childhoods because of it.

Now, lying next to him like this, with his sweat still drying on her chest and arms, she knew that it had really never been about Jounouchi at all. It had been about the strength to smile in the face of death, and the nerve to get up when the whole world had beaten them down. She did not want his body, or even his heart; she just wished that she could have had his luck, his fighting spirit and undaunted tenacity. But those were things that could not be transferred through kisses or soft caresses. Those were all things that she had to find within her, one way or another.

Staring up at the ceiling for the millionth time since they had started seeing each other again, Mai realized that it had never been about love. It was about acceptance and fear, about failure and defeat and the need to win. She did not love Jounouchi, but only the  _idea_  of Jounouchi, and the things and times he represented.

Mai put a hand over her mouth so that she would not wake him when she started to cry.

* * *

"I-I. . . I love you."

For a moment, Mai feared that she was too late. What if he didn't love her anymore? She chewed her lower lip but kept his gaze. Had she waited too long? He was sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands clasped loosely together between his spread knees, an expression like an apprehensive puppy unsure of whether he was being rewarded or punished. She could not stand that look; it made her eyes water and her confidence waiver. Mai rubbed at the back of her neck uncertainly, and finally looked away. "God, say  _something_."

"What took you so long?" She looked back to him with a start, and Valon was smiling with his arms open to receive her. Mai would have hit him if she had not been so happy.


	19. Regret

**41.**  Never be afraid to touch someone.

He turned and walked away, the way that he always did. He did not turn around, did not glance back over one shoulder to see if she was still there. Mai did not know why it hurt so much. She felt that she should have been used to it by now; she was becoming intimately familiar with that view of his back. Her throat tightened, and she could not breathe, could not swallow. It should not have bothered her the way that it did, she rationalized. Her happiness should not have depended on his approval, she told herself. He should not have been able to leave her shaken like this, to bring all her strength and confidence crumbling down around her. Watching Jounouchi leave her behind for the hundredth time should not have still had the power to haunt her dreams and slam her back into consciousness.

She should not have still been waking up sobbing and in hysterics, clutching at her heart the way that she did now. She should not have still needed Valon to wrap his arms around her and tell her that everything was going to be okay, or that she didn't have to be scared anymore because he was there to protect her. Mai was a strong woman. She should not have needed a man to comfort her.

Mai wiped at her tired eyes, pushing Valon away. She would be okay, she promised, but knew from the uncertain way that he regarded her that he did not really believe her this time. Regardless, he laid back down, one arm tucked behind his head. She sat up and turned away from him, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and gripping the edge of the mattress tightly with clammy fingers.

How could it be that, after all these years, she was still aching from the loss of something that she had never really had? If she could have reached out to Jounouchi back then, would it have made a difference? It was a thought that kept her up at night more and more as time went on. She often wondered if things would have been different if she had only had the strength to grab his hand and ask him to stay. Some nights she thought that maybe that was what Jounouchi had been waiting for all along. Other nights, she told herself that it would have been worse if she had tried, because no matter what she might have done, she knew that he would not have held her hand through the darkness.

But tonight, she glanced back over her shoulder and her violet eyes met dark blue, met worry and concern and deep affection. Tonight, she remembered that she had a man with her who would follow her through Hell and expect nothing in return. She had someone who was never afraid to reach out for her and tell her that she was wanted and loved – win or lose. Mai had something precious, and a small smile danced across her lips as she looked at him.

If she had not been afraid to touch Jounouchi, Mai reminded herself, then she never would have met Valon, and that was something that she would never regret doing.


	20. Stronger

**48.**  Don't say we aren't right for each other. The way I see it, we aren't right for anyone else.

"Sometimes. . . sometimes you just can't  _be with_  the person you really love, because you realize that it's all wrong," she was saying absently with brows furrowed, trying to find a way to explain it to the brunette sitting across from her at the café table. "Sometimes, you know, you just have to be the stronger person, and you have to choose to be apart. You choose to be with the person who makes you laugh and be honest, who makes you feel strong and safe and able to take on the world instead. You know what I mean, Anzu: that person who, just by spending time with, makes you feel like you're becoming a better person, because  _they're_ a better person."

"Isn't that love? What you're describing?"

"What? No, no, not all," Mai shook her head, leaning back and taking a sip of her latte. "Love has  _nothing_ to do with it. Love is something that I couldn't explain or describe if I tried."

"So. . ." Anzu pursed her lips thoughtfully, tapping the table with one finger. "So, you don't love him."

"No."

"But being together makes you happy."

"Yeah."

"Like, 'best friends' happy?"

". . . No."

"So, what is it?"

"I don't know. I just know. . . that it's all right, whatever it is. It's going to be okay at least until I don't have to be the stronger person anymore."

"And then what, Mai?"

"And then I hope Valon will be able to forgive me for using him for so long, and I hope he can move on."

They finished their coffee in silence, considering the implications of such a relationship.


	21. Love like Dance

**36.**  Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt.

Valon could not dance. The young man had absolutely no sense of rhythm; he could not have followed a beat if his life depended on it. Mai used to think it was funny, because she had assumed that the fluid features of his fighting style, the graceful twists and quick adaptability of his body, would have been something that carried over and lent itself well to dance. She was horribly mistaken, but at least it made for hilarious reenactments in their living room.

Despite the severe nature of his social impairment, he did still engage in a bizarre approximation of dancing from time to time. Sometimes, on good days when everything just seemed to go  _right_ for them, she would find him in the kitchen, moving his shoulders or shuffling his feet not quite in time with the music while putting dishes away.

Today, apparently, was a good day.

Mai chuckled to herself, watching him make a fool of himself from behind. He must have heard her, though, because he paused, and turned back towards the entryway with a smile. Unfortunately, that meant he stopped 'dancing.'

"Hey, you."

"Hey," she replied, tilting her head to one side and biting down on her lower lip absently for a moment. "Good day?"

"Every day with you is a great day." Valon set the cup he had been drying down on the counter, crossing the kitchen to give her a hug and kiss her forehead. "I love you."

"Why do you always say it like that?" Mai asked, wrapping her arms loosely around his waist. He raised a brow quizzically at her question.

"Like what?"

"You know," she chided, moving one hand to playfully swat at his back. Valon only laughed, shaking his head as he squeezed her tighter. Mai clarified: "You say 'I love you' like it's. . ." she trailed off, gesturing vaguely.

". . . Like it's my first time?"

"Well, yeah."

"That's because it is."


End file.
